


reverse moon

by blackfirewolf



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Caleb Widogast's Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, POV Caleb Widogast, Post-Episode 26, Self-Esteem Issues, Stream of Consciousness, Tarot Cards, Team as Family, and all the horrible stuff that comes with it, caleb & beau friendship because i love them, i apologize for how many em dashes and parentheses are used in this lol, the timeline is all over the place here, warnings for mentions of torture/violence/fire trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27032374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackfirewolf/pseuds/blackfirewolf
Summary: "Caleb remembers this: the deft twist of purple fingers, the swish of a patterned coat. The initial gleam of ruby eyes. The lazy sway of a tail and gentle clink of gold jewelry. The smooth transition of cards passed through hands like silk—a routine more than a fortune. Someone they did not yet know, reading the body language and expressions of the table, carefully weighing what they wanted to hear with just enough mystery and vagueness to give them credibility."-----------A story about Mollymauk that's really more about Caleb.
Relationships: Caleb Widogast & Everyone, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	reverse moon

**Author's Note:**

> nott's speech in ep27 where she says she loves the mighty nein lives in my head rent-free, baby!!
> 
> started listening to cr this summer in quarantine, and even tho i'd already gotten spoilers for mollymauk's death, i still was DEVASTATED when it happened. i sobbed so hard i had to keep pausing so i could collect myself lmao. despite that tho, caleb is very predictably my favourite,, i would die for that wizard man. 
> 
> anyway, this is a birthday gift for my friend Molly, who was the one to get me into cr in the first place! love you bro, and hope you enjoy! <3
> 
> thank you to klara from the slug server for beta reading for me! i really appreciate it ;-;

The thing is, Caleb does not remember how he got roped in so quickly to this group. He is excellent with time—knows it down to the minute—but sometimes, he is not so good with existing within its space. He may be conscious that he has spent several hours hunched over a book or transcribing spells, but he often does not grasp the concept of the action until he blinks awake or Nott drags him from his trance.

It is odd. He remembers with acute detail how he met these people (his memory is also excellent, after all). Enough that he could probably recite their first conversation word-for-word, or describe in detail the way Jester smiled or Beau snorted laughter into her arm or Fjord looked resigned to his companions harassing a pair of dirty, suspicious strangers.

By the time they leave town, he is struggling to understand how he lost the time between just-Him-and-Nott to Him-and-Nott-and-an-entire-group-of-other-assholes.

If he is fair, they’ve been looking to join a group anyway, and him and Nott had formed a very quick partnership, too. At first, it was out of necessity for escaping prison (or so he tells himself), then it was sticking together for protection (and not because he was viciously lonely and was endeared by the little goblin girl with sharp teeth and an even sharper attitude), and finally, because he can admit that he likes Nott and cares for her wellbeing. He likes her bad jokes and the way she gobbles down her food and how her voice goes shrill when she thinks he is in danger, and he even likes how she cannot resist emptying pockets, despite how often it gets them both into hot water. He cannot imagine, now, not waking up with her curled against his hip or at his feet like a cat. When he turns, he knows she will be at his side, clutching his hand with small fingers or tugging at his coat to get his attention, yellow eyes gleaming with mischief and bandaged ears twitching towards sounds just like Frumpkin.

(Caleb remembers this: the deft twist of purple fingers, the swish of a patterned coat. The initial gleam of ruby eyes. The lazy sway of a tail and gentle _clink_ of gold jewelry. The smooth transition of cards passed through hands like silk—a routine more than a fortune. Someone they did not yet know, reading the body language and expressions of the table, carefully weighing what they wanted to hear with just enough mystery and vagueness to give them credibility.

Later, however, those same cards would flash between fingers without flare: a silver moon and a shadow, a private, more genuine exchange that betrayed the true kindness and spirit of the readings.)

Caleb does not know much about tarot cards, but he quickly becomes accustomed to them. Mollymauk draws them each morning, practices his sleight-of-hand while lounging on the back of the cart, idly flicks through them as the evening winds down. Caleb watches more than once how he prepares a spread for Jester’s amusement or to see Yasha smile, but he never asks for his own cards to be read. A part of him is perhaps scared what they will turn up. Whether it is the fates that Caleb fears or Mollymauk’s keen observations, however, he is unsure.

(Caleb remembers this: the heat of fire. The smoke. The awful charring of flesh, rotten and thick and boiling blood in veins still furiously pumping. Screaming, inside his head, not outside, but it’s _so loud_ , and he cannot _breathe_ , cannot _think_ , can only stare and stare and _stare_ —

Until someone slaps his cheek, hard enough to sting, but not enough to bruise. A voice calling him away from the memories choking him. A kiss, pressed to his forehead. A gentleness he does not deserve, maybe, but that he clings to anyway.)

Caleb knows what he has done and what he wants to do, but he doesn’t know what to do with these people who have barrelled their way into his life. Doesn’t know what to do when he’s memorized their habits without thinking about it. Doesn’t know what it means that he crawls further and further into the frontline with each battle that passes them by, more intent on protecting them than he should be. Doesn’t know what it means when he spills his guts to Beauregard and she tells him it’s nothing to be ashamed of (and he knows she is wrong), or when they make a pact to check each other if they start to go off the rails.

(He doesn’t know what it means, that he does not flee. That time after time he flinches from these people, ready in an instant to take Nott and disappear into the night, but never follows through. Even when Fjord presses a sword to his neck, when Beau lashes out with snarled, angry words—he does not walk away.)

She says that she loves them.

Caleb does not love them—he hasn’t loved anyone in a long, long time. A part of him doesn’t want to, either. Love (or what he’d thought was love) had made him believe in an Empire and people who’d only hurt him in the end—and his love for his parents hadn’t been enough to stop him from watching his childhood home burn, even though it had been enough to shatter his mind. Love was a foreign concept he both yearned for and despised, because he knew, deep down, he did not deserve to love and be loved again, after all he’d done.

(Caleb remembers this: he hugs Beauregard and forgives her, wildly aware that he does not know what he’s doing, that he has not had a proper hug with someone other than Nott since he was a child. He dances with Jester, swaying drunkenly back and forth, for once not hurt by the memories of his past. He sits on watch with Fjord in companionable silence, the half-orc humming sea shanties under his breath. He sends Frumpkin to rub against Yasha when she’s staring off into the distance, watches the way she startles and then softens, stroking over the fey cat’s back. He watches Molly overpay for things with a smile, and kneel over his blades before settling down to sleep, and unabashedly negotiate for “friendly company” while Fjord flushes and Jester makes comments that cause Beauregard to howl with laughter, and over and over Caleb watches the spread of tarot cards.

He does not answer Nott’s challenge—her firm, unwavering: _I want to hear you say it_. He can only walk away, and tell himself that he does not remember these things.)

On the night after, they cuddle together for warmth. Beauregard attempts to fit into a spot next to Nila, obviously trying to capture some of the body heat radiating from the firbolg, but in the end, it’s the three of them that end up huddling against each other. Just the three of them, now. Half of their group is stolen and one of them lays beneath the snow, and Caleb aches in a way that has nothing to do with the chill in the air or leftover wounds from their disastrous battle plan.

At some point during the night, he shifts awake to catch a glimpse of Nott’s face, her eyes open to yellow slits as she stares right back at him. She’s situated herself as the little spoon against Beau, propped against her midriff and curled between the both of them. Beau mumbles something in her sleep, hunching forward so that her forehead presses against Caleb’s shoulder, and suddenly Caleb wants to cry, wants to apologize, wants to run all over again, even though he won’t.

It had been difficult to wake up and realize half the Mighty Nein was missing, but it had seemed infinitely less daunting then in that moment, knowing that Mollymauk Tealeaf was dead.

(Behind his eyelids, he watches the sword plunge into Molly’s chest again and again. The meaty _thunk_ of it slotting between his ribcage. The spray of blood from the tiefling’s lips. The dull ruby of eyes never closed, staring up at the sky.

He thinks about the grave he dug, the bloodstained coat waving like a flag in the wind. It was the only colour amid a landscape drained of life. He does not want to remember this, but does anyway.)

She says she loves them, with a tremble in her voice and her clawed hands clutched together like a prayer.

Caleb doesn’t love them. Hell, they barely qualify as _friends_. But Beauregard mourns more openly then he could have expected—rages and curses and wipes her eyes roughly, speaks in a gruff undertone that is nothing but fondness and regret and anger. She says Molly always wanted to leave a place better than it was, and Caleb thinks about the extra coin Molly always gave to vendors and beggars, the way he smiled at Yasha, the press of a kiss against his forehead, all his teasing comments and gentle touches, and he believes every word of her eulogy.

No, they have not known each other long. But he and Nott have invested in these people thus far, and it would be amiss to just abandon what they have achieved—what could _still_ be achieved, if they play their cards right.

(She demands _: I want to hear you say it_ , and he is filled with more anger and grief than he knows what to do with. If it wasn’t her, if it wasn’t his dear little friend, he feels like he’d scream—like he’d do or say anything to make her hurt, to make her _burn_. He wants to drive them all off, these people he won’t admit he’s attached to, that he insists are only a means to an end. He wants to run from that sort of love he does not want to feel and does not deserve.

Of course, all he does is walk away. He has always been a coward at heart.)

The thing is, Caleb does not remember when he no longer wanted to use these people. When he no longer viewed them as assets to shield him and Nott, but as friends instead. Nott sums it up better than him (because she is clever, more clever than she gives herself credit for) and Caleb listens, because he knows she is right. These people—the Mighty Nein—don’t just keep them safe. They’re fighting bad guys and saving people and travelling under the sun and winning drinking contests and making honest coin and they’re… they’re living, aren’t they? For the first time in many, many years, Caleb isn’t just surviving.

(He tells her, later: _I like them_ , and her face is so soft despite her teeth and bandages as she says, _I think they like you_.)

Caleb holds Nott, when it’s over and their friends gather around the lone grave in the woods. Her weight is a warm comfort, similar to Frumpkin draped over his shoulders. It’s Beauregard that mentions the cards. She’s the one to fan them out and offer them to Jester, in a gesture that is void of any flamboyancy or exaggerated confidence.

Even from a distance, Caleb recognizes the silver circles of the moon card, flipped upside-down before Jester rights it in her grip.

(Caleb remembers this: Mollymauk lounging next to the campfire, Yasha settled cross-legged next to him and asking hushed questions on the tarot’s meanings. He hadn’t bothered to lower his voice like her. He had flipped the cards between his fingers and explained general meanings, deeper interpretations, how the cards often depended on the people that drew them, the differences between upright and reversed spreads.

Caleb hadn’t actually listened to what the individual cards meant—he’d been too absorbed in his own readings.)

 _It’s his card_ , she says, her accent blurred and thick with her sorrow. The card couldn’t be seen as they rode away, nothing but a speck among the snow while the rainbow coat still fluttered from its makeshift cross. But Caleb imagined he could.

If Yasha was still there—if her anguished screams didn’t still echo through his bones—he’d have asked her what it meant. It could, of course, be coincidence. Caleb didn’t quite put much stock into cards spelling the future or some divine being passing down nebulous knowledge in such a way—he’d always assumed that the cards were just another way for Mollymauk to put on an act. The fortunes he’d told were appropriately vague like that, although never cruelly optimistic or disastrous. It was always a middle-ground, gently encouraging the recipient to action through faith and confidence.

That was not necessarily a bad thing, when Caleb thought about it.

(Caleb remembers this: the fireworks sparking at their feet, the whoops and hollers and drunken screaming of his friends. The cool tankard in his hand, raised in acknowledgement. _To that purple devil_ , he says, and what he means is: _Your life made an impact, Mister Mollymauk Tealeaf_.)

How odd, he’d think later. Mollymauk had only gained his life back recently, just like him (and he’d guess, many of the others), but his life had mattered. Even if he hadn’t charmed everyone he came across, hadn’t set up a temporary home in the now-disbanded circus, he’d at least left an imprint on their little group of misfits. His life would be remembered.

Caleb had always assumed, after escaping the asylum, that he’d die without fanfare. Either in the bowels of some dungeon, or hungry and dirty in a ditch. Now though… not only was that unlikely, but he marveled at the idea of someone raising a glass to his name when he was dead.

(No, no. It did no good to think like that. To imagine that they cared about him like he cared about them.)

Sometimes, he sees Beauregard shuffle the cards, absent-minded and seemingly not even aware she’s doing it. Other times, Jester sits next to her and watches, and Caleb can see the awareness sink into both of their expressions, even if they never comment on it.

She never does a spread—either because she doesn’t know how, or because the deck is missing a card, Caleb is unsure.

(Caleb remembers this: Mollymauk’s rambling voice over the cackle of their campfire. The moon likes to shroud things—deals with the night, the unknown, a lack of information manifesting as anxiety and fear in the subconscious mind.

 _So it’s a bad card_ , Yasha says, and Molly chuckles as he responds, _No, dear—a card isn’t purely good or bad. It’s our own interpretations, remember._ )

She says she loves them, as if it is an offhand thing. As if it does not shake him to his core. As if it does not dig claws into the grief and self-loathing curdling in his gut.

Caleb does not love them. He desperately does not want to love these people—these brilliant, unique people who do not know how to shut up or when to quit. These people who are damaged in their own ways, carrying so much baggage that Caleb isn’t sure how they manage to shoulder it all. These people who… who care about him, in their own ways, both quietly and loudly.

They are an unknown he does not know how to handle. In one moment, he allows himself to go blind and deaf, clasping one of their shoulders with a naked trust he does not think twice about, and in the next, he pulls his coat close to his chest and maps all the exits in a room. They slide drinks and food into his peripheral vision when he’s working, wordlessly encouraging him to eat and drink, and they seem content to let him ride on the cart most days, so he can scribble and read as they travel. Nott has always hovered, but he’s also gotten used to Jester’s healing hands, her rolled eyes that hide how concerned she really is. He’s gotten used to Fjord’s charisma soothing conversations and Yasha raging on the frontline, taking the brunt of hits.

(Beauregard clasps his shoulder and steers him away from the burning body. She speaks in an oddly gentle voice, given how rough she usually is, and shoves a flask into his hands like she’s throwing a punch. He thinks she might ask if he’s alright, with that blunt tone that always carries an undercurrent of annoyance, and he doesn’t remember what he says, but later on, he’ll know that his episode—the memories—were easier to bear with her presence.

Much later, he helps her wrap Mollymauk’s body, and thinks about the press of lips against his forehead, the bitterness of alcohol on his tongue from a platinum flask. He’s gotten used to feeling like he’s burning from the inside-out.) 

What does it even mean, to love? To care? He knows his parents loved him, that his village was proud of him and the others. He knows he loved his friends, even when they practiced torture on each other and ignored how they took turns crying in their beds at night. He knows how he loved his teacher, all twisted up with the nauseating terror and anxiety of not being enough, of failing, of being punished and hurt. He knows that for a long, long time, love was synonymous to pain.

It wasn’t like that when he was a child. Caring for someone was as simple as a drink placed within arm’s reach.

(Caleb remembers this: the moon likes to shroud things. A reminder to trust your gut, because it is the only source of knowledge remaining in the darkness. It is a shot in the dark. It is, more than anything, a chance to overlook doubts, and simply take a risk.

Mollymauk draws his swords, and bleeds a little too much, and he never gets back up.)

She says she loves them, and Caleb thinks about that first tarot reading, before they were all invited to attend a circus. A silver dragon, an anvil, a serpent, and eye, and maybe Caleb doesn’t know much about tarot, but something about that spread feels pointed. Maybe the cards were more coincidence than omniscient, but that just meant Mollymauk had pegged them more accurately in the beginning than Caleb could ever hope to.

 _You’ve already found the clue you’re looking for—you just don’t know what it is yet_ , he says, and at the time Caleb inwardly rolls his eyes. He is a man of study, not of faith. Caleb spent his youth looking to the future and the moments afterwards locked in the past, and thus, now he tries to stay focused on the present, on surviving just one more day in the hopes he can change things.

In the future, he will be asked if he believes in fate, if he thinks they are being driven towards something by things greater than themselves, and it is something he would like to believe is not true, but he isn’t sure. That answer is not necessarily a lie, but it is hardly the full truth. After all, he is attempting to turn back the clock, allowing himself to believe that if he alters certain details, he will get a drastically different outcome, and that discredits any notion of fate.

Destiny, he knows, is a pretty lie used by cowards to justify their misdeeds—and while Caleb is certainly a coward, he will not allow himself to believe that it was anything but his own free will that led to his destruction. His path may not be easy, but it is fairly clear. 

He thinks he knows exactly what clues he’s looking for, and he certainly hasn’t found them yet.

(Caleb remembers this: Mollymauk flips the card upside-down, his teeth flashing white as he grins down at it. _Reversed_ , he says, _is facing what has previously been left unknown_. 

_A resolution_ , Yasha says, in a tone like thunder, like the way she’ll scream her grief to the sky, and Mollymauk laughs as silently as a snowfall.)

Caleb does not have the capability to articulate his emotions very well, but he tries, anyway. He is more open with Nott than anyone else, because she is clever, because she cares, because she is not in the wrong when she demands, _I want to hear you say it_.

He cannot say he loves these people, but he loves her—loves the way she trots to keep up with their long-legged pace, how she counts her buttons before bed, how she steals him books and slips pocket bacon into his robes. She fidgets with the jade bracelet Beau gave her as she speaks, confident enough to make eye contact with him despite the fact that she’s a goblin, and is more used to hiding and keeping her head down, and that is just another thing he loves about her.

He was used to keeping his own head down, after escaping the asylum. For those years he was on the run, dying in a ditch was the only logical conclusion for him. Being thrown into prison with Nott—in a way, it had saved him.

(Caleb remembers this: limbs locked up with exhaustion and malnutrition. Aching from bruises and cuts the guards had inflicted, the cruelty of their laughs as they throw him into a cell and slam it shut with a deafening _clang_ of metal. The glint of yellow eyes watching him, and being too tired to be scared.

It had taken several days for her to stop speaking to him like a cornered animal, and several more for her to actually approach him, but he remembers her warmth against his side and the way she’d carded clawed fingers through his dirty hair after he’d awoken from a nightmare. He remembers that her hands had shook, and only then had it occurred to him that she’d been scared of him, too—and despite that, had still offered him comfort, anyway.)

He lets her braid flowers into his hair—not because he believes it brings him luck, but because he can marvel at how her hands no longer shake. She cares for him so easily, like it’s as simple as breathing. Like love is not a terrifying thing. And yes, he does love her, has claimed her as family after their time together, but she is not a risk. She is only one person, and while she is clever and quick and strong, he is also highly aware that she would never use it against him.

Nott is safe to love, and the others are not. 

She says she loves them, though. That these people can be a family to them, and that she does not want to use them or pretend that they are only an asset. That she will disappear into the night with Caleb if necessary, but she doesn’t want to deceive them in the meantime—and what she really means is: _I do not want to deceive ourselves_.

(Mollymauk’s eyes gleam in the dim lighting of the Evening Nip as he says: _If there's one thing I've learned about dealing with people that you can't trust, is that you have to trust them where you can and not trust them where you can't._

Caleb thinks it is a difficult thing, to love people but not trust them.)

And yet… how can he say he does not trust these people? How can he hold still as Yasha hefts her greatsword and presses it to his jaw? Because he allows her to shave him, despite how quickly she could slit his throat, despite how easy it would be to pass off as a mistake, and feels himself relax even as the occasional nick stings in the open air of their campsite.

It is not a relaxing experience. And yet, his muscles go limp and placid as she gently moves his cheek to one side, so that her blade can scrape another careful, uneven line through the hair growing there. There is a lingering scent of lavender oil on her, the type that Mollymauk uses, and it makes him want to smile, even though he doesn’t. Her fingers, cold and calloused against his neck, make him almost dizzy with the desire for touch, and it is not trust—he does not trust these people—but what else can it be?

It is not the individual moments Caleb wrestles with. In the moment, it is almost instinctual to rely on these people, to know they will have his back in battle and can be trusted as they travel. It’s second nature to bare his throat, especially to those stronger than himself, but it doesn’t feel wrong like it did when he was a child. Less of a submission, and more of a precious, guarded vulnerability. 

Maybe, Caleb thinks, it is not these people he mistrusts, but himself. After all, Caleb Widogast is a lie—and his shadow trails behind him like the weight of his secrets, oppressive and dark and gradually recognizable.

(Caleb remembers this: a singular card left behind in the snow. The tears of people he knew, deep down, were more than just convenient travelling companions. The warmth of Beauregard’s breath on his neck and Nott’s yellow eyes watching unflinchingly. Snow hitting his cheeks, burning like a cold brand, and the resistance of frozen earth being dug into a grave. The build of heat in his palms and the searing release of fire, hitting the creature that had stolen his friends, who had put Mollymauk in the ground, and he feels nothing as it writhes and burns in its final moments.

 _You shouldn’t have killed my cat_ , he rasps, because it is the only thing he can say that doesn’t leave him untethered and drifting. What he means is: _You took something precious from us_.)

He makes an assumption, the night he agrees to follow these people. The knowledge that they, too, carry secrets, but none so condemning as his own, and in that way, it’s easier to only be concerned about himself (and Nott, of course).

But he finds the clues he was looking for—that he always had, yet refused to acknowledge—in their company. A reason to fight. A reason to live. For so long, he has been blind and in the dark, refusing to seek a resolution that does not fit the narrative in his head.

It is a weakness to care, but also a great strength, he realizes, and it is only then that he lets himself cry for everything he has lost.

(Caleb remembers this: Mollymauk fixes him with a ruby stare and asks, _Would you like a reading, darling?_

The feel of a book beneath his fingers, the sway of the cart over the bumpy road, the weight of Frumpkin on his shoulders. He does not look at the tiefling next to him. The sun is warm on the back of his neck, but not unpleasantly so, as he replies with, _No, Mister Mollymauk, I am alright_.

 _Well, the offer is always there, Mister Caleb_. The tilt of Mollymauk’s amusement is bright and prominent, like a circus performer doing a handstand. The gentle _clink_ of jewelry and idle shuffling of cards is familiar, and Caleb cannot help but glimpse the card with silver circles Mollymauk draws from his shuffle. There is a fang-toothed smile at the corner of his eye, the chatter of his friends and hoofbeats lulling him into a sense of calm, and Caleb is startled to realize, that for the first time in a long time, he is content.)

She says she loves them—and Caleb thinks he might love them, too.

**Author's Note:**

> i know nothing about tarot cards so i consulted my friend briar, and smth he said about the reverse moon card formed the basis for this story: "It can mean a resolution but more often the moon card wants to shroud things. When I draw a reversed moon card I typically look at where in my life I have assumed something and often find I have assumed wrong." whether or not that's accurate, it shaped what i started on a whim after i listened to ep26. 
> 
> i'm only on ep75 rn so please no spoilers in the comments, thanks! 
> 
> as always, you can hmu [@blackfirewolf](https://blackfirewolf.tumblr.com/)


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